258 PEOFESSOE W. K. PAEKEK ON THE 



rim of the frontal (n. gd) is scooped, as in water-birds, for the long nasal gland. This 

 Grallatorial character is as remarkable as the Passerine modifications seen in the skull 

 of the Hemipods, whose skulls do not clearly show any bevelling of the orbit for the 

 gland. 



In another remarkable type, also from Chili, Thinocorus rumicivorus (Plate LIV. 

 fig. 5), the orbital eave is scooped a little more than in Phytotoma for its long tongue- 

 shaped nasal gland ; and these birds agree, also, in the height of the rostrum and in 

 the narrowness of the frontal region, above, between the eyes i. 



Altogether this type must be considered to be one of the very lowest of the Pas- 

 serines (Coracomorphse), on the whole on a level with the Cotingidae, Formicariidse, and 

 Tanagridfe; but by its pluvialine nasal-gland groove, and its probably aborted teeth, \t is 

 marked off from its nearest known congeners — a species representing a genus, and even 

 a family, quite unique. 



Example 34. Skull of Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris. Family Meliphagidse. 



Section Oscines. 



Ilahitat. Australia. 



This and the next type of skull (Plate XLVII. figs. 1-4) may be profitably compared 

 with those of the Nectarinidse (Plate LIII.). 



Whatever the zoologist may find like or unlike in these two families, anatomically, 

 they are widely apart — the Meliphagidse of Australia being very aberrant as Passerines, 

 and the Nectariniidse of Celebes (and, I suppose, also of regions north of the equator) 

 being merely delicate tenuirostral modifications of the soft-billed singing birds of the 

 Old World. 



In Acanthorhynchus there is nothing especially to be remarked upon in the pterygoids 

 (Plate XLVII. fig. l,pg), but that they diverge considerably to reach the quadrate bones. 

 They are expanded where they join the palatines, and have given off the -usual meso- 

 pterygoid plate to those bones. The epipterygoid process (e.pff) is well developed and 

 rather broad. The postpalatine keels {pt.pa) are as- well developed as in Southern birds 

 generally ; the interpalatine spike {i:pa) is arrested ; and the ethmo-palatine half-coil 

 has completely coalesced with the corresponding crus of the vomer {e.pa, v). 



The transpalatine [t.jm) shows the retral, spike-shaped form of the Notogceal types ; 

 they diverge considerably in this species. The double isthmus running from the inner 

 part of the bone to the ethmo- and interpalatine region is broad, and the prsepalatine 

 ( pr. j}a) is long, slender, and dilated in its anterior third ; but in its position this bar is 

 very remarkable. The relation of the prsepalatine bar to the palatine process of the prae- 



' Thinocorus, as I have elsewhere shown, comes nearest, on the whole, to the " Geramomorphse," yet it has a 

 palate compounded of the Dromteognathous, ^githognathous, and Schizognathous types of structure. If the 

 zoologist would find out this riddle, he must plough with the morphologist's heifer. 



